Being present is the hardest thing. It requires nothing of us and yet often we are so uncomfortable being nothing, nothing other than right here, right now.

Merry Christmas everyone! I love you one and all. May you all be happy today and every day after, and may you all be happy every hour of every day, and in every minute of every hour may you experience  joy, gratitude and love.

Merry Christmas to you all. This year is a cardless Christmas. I have been living frugally for a few months now and the purchasing / making  of cards and the costs of postage are well beyond my means (I can just manage the essentials - tram and train costs and cigarettes – ha). So while I haven’t had the pleasure of thinking of each of you as a gaze upon a sea of cards, waiting for just the right one to pop up; thinking of you with my pen poised over the blank inner waiting for just the right words to pop in, thinking of you as I slip your card into the red red mouth of the post office box on the street corner, I have thought of you, and I know you know how I feel.

I love you long time. May you all share in my dharma. May you all share in my merit.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Thank goodness it all feels so much more manageable in the mornings! I was  shattered and a little disheartened once again last night. Shattered by what I had been through and disheartened by the thought of all that I had yet to go through.

This morning sitting at Divan I am less of both, and in this lighter mood, I want to say thank you!! Iwant to acknowledge Kate, without whom I wouldn’t be managing this whole course as I am. Once again it was Kate who took me to her workpace this morning where I printed off materials for my lesson this afternoon. Kate has been, and is, so incredibly supportive. There was quiche waiting for me when I got home last night, and curry the night before.

Just in case you don’t know Kate, you are one of the most genuinely caring, supportive and generous people I know. May all your dreams come true. May you always share in my dharma.

So I taught for 20 minutes yesterday – went quite well I think, although luckily the trainer intervened at one point as I was about to activate a task that I had failed to give clear instrutions about. Saved the day and from there it went ahead reasonably smoothly with lots of smiles and laughter from the students which is always a good sign (isn’t it?)

After feedback on our TP (teaching practice) it was almost 6 by the time I left. I managed to find a cybercafe and chat with Cari for a while, although it was pretty subdued. She has a cold and I’m shattered. I haven’t felt this exhausted after a day’s activity for a long time!! Ha!

I was up at 4.45 this morning, and worked solidly for the next 1 1/2 hour doing prep for my TP this afternoon. There’s still about another 1/2 hour of work I need to cram into today somewhere.

This is the huge difference between the 4 weeks CELTA course and the part-time 10 month TESOL course I was doing in the UK.  Pace and intensity.  The CELTA  course is hard andfast. I know with the TESOL the extended learning period allowed me to make some great friends – an outcome well worth the course fees alone. It is unlikely such close and meaningful friendships will develop with my five fellow CELTA students.

TESOL encourages the nurturing of creativity whereas CELTA is more about creating under pressure (again neither is right or wrong…). TESOL is a more gentle introduction into teaching – it iincluded a time for reflection, for dwelling on what has been taught; after each lesson there is a perculation period. CELTA is learn it and do it, often in the same day. I guess CELTA is more trial by fire. It is an ordeal and at the end there will be a sense of ‘having made it’, of getting through, a bit like the 10 day silent Buddhist retreats I used to attend.

There is with the CELTA a much earlier introduction to students. I appreciate this, after all this is what it is all about. The 4 week CELTA is like work. The work of teaching.  Doing the TESOL was a part time job. I fitted it in with the other parts of my life (work, social, domestic, personal etc etc) whereas the 4 week CELTA doesn’t fit in with anything. It becomes life – my life, for4 weeks anyway!!

Which reminds me – we are finishing a day early, as there are only 6 of us on this course (instead of 12) this means we get more TP time and so we only need 19 days to get through it all, not the 20 originally planned. Yehaaaa!! Tomorrow there are 16 days to go -goodbye day 17!!

bhavatu sabbe mangalum

Two years have passed since my very first post. Two years – wow! This website was once a dream, simply a possibility, a maybe, and now it is so much a part of my life. So much of what has happened for me, to me and in me in the last two years is captured and freed on here.

I knew this day was coming and wanted to write a post to recognise it, and I hadn’t really thought what I would write about. I’ve just read my very first post, appropriately called ‘the beginning’ (funny that), and that reminded me what it is I need and want to say.

Thank you. That’s it. Thank you

Yes you. Whoever you are reading this  – thank you. My words are so obviously about me and for me that to know that there are some others over these last two years who chose to read, ponder and puzzle about what I say has been hugely supporting.  I know it sounds like a cliche, and, I really don’t think I could have done it without you.

For those of you who have been here on and off over the last two years you’ll know there is one person who has been, and continues to be, very very close to me. One person who has, like no one else, set me free.

Thanks darling.

Caroline – you love me in all ways. You love me always. In doing so you set me free. The things that at times tie me down, hold me back, shut me up and lock me away are all mine, made from smoke and mirrors of my own making. It is you who then sits me down, holds me lightly, loves me deeply and illuminates the way out of my maze. You really do want me to be happy. Thank you so so much.

So once again – gratitude. I am rapt that it has become the most prominent of the ‘tags’  on this blog- I am pleased that over the last two years it is the thing of all things that I have most ranted and raved about, the thing most expressed. Thanks everybody, thanks for a bloody fantastic, absolutely awesome two years!! May you all share in my dharma.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

I came to know this most wonderful man while I was studying to become a ESOL teacher (and no, I’m not referring to myself -  although my study has led me to know myself a quite a bit better). This guy’s name is Scott and he is one of those genuine people who seem to exude only love, compassion and goodwill. What a pleasure, what a gift it is for me to have met Scott. He lifts me up every time I am with him.  Every time we meet I am astounded all over again by his way of being.

We all had to give a couple of  ’micro-teach’ lessons (this is a 15 minute teaching activity that we present to our classmates) during the course. During Scott’s last microteach he chose to facilitate a discussion about ‘chance’, about how our lives are very much determined by chance, or what seems like chance. Things like taking the earlier bus and just happening to come across an old friend who we haven’t seen for years when we disembark. An old friend who just happens to mention in passing that he has been reading a book that we then see in a second-hand bookstore the following day. When we buy the book we discover unexpectedly that it has the very information in it we have been seeking for the essay we are writing, due the next day.  That sort of thing -  chance…

…or not. Scott’s teaching got me thinking about synchronicity – something I have written about before (see sweet caroline… ). 

And it reminded me of a presentation I gave to my classmates a few months ago now – a presentation which started with a piece of graffiti that read ‘your life is chance not choice’ and ended with that graffiti rewritten as ‘your life is choice not chance’. Well it’s both, and that’s where synchronicity comes in.

Synchronicity is a big word for the collision of chance and choice. It is a collision we all create simply by being here. We exist in a world of randomness, a world of chance. And thoughout our lives we make choices about which bits of this randomness we will collide with. Often, particularly as we age, we come to understand many of these collisions as being caused by the conscious decisions we make. And we tend to relegate all others, those that seem to us to be not of our doing, as coincidence, chance, luck.

Yet perhaps this is a false dichotomy. Perhaps we are present in all the collisions of our live, whether we are conscious of it or not. And the sooner we realise this, and the sooner we take responsibilty for this, the sooner we can have our strawberry ice-cream.

So thanks Scott. Thanks for being who you are. Thanks for being in my life right now – I appreciate it, I appreciate you immensely.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

… and the feeling remains the same. So does the sentiment.

It’s been 12 months since my first post – called rather dramatically ’the beginning’. And having just revisited that post, that place called the beginning, I want to say it all again. I am saying it all again right here, right now. Twelve months later and the song remains the same.

gratitude

thank you

thank you

thank you

I’m still in London, still with Cari and Tilly, still loving every minute of it. Twelve months have passed and it no longer seems longer – it seems like, and it is, simply a moment, that has been filled with so much joy, so much excitement, so much wonder, so much documented in my words and images here – and so so much that isn’t.

I continue to be well looked after, well loved, and feeling so very very happy and free all the time.

Thanks Cari – I love you dearly xx

I am free to walk, although nowadays I tend to ride. I move a little faster than a year ago – the pace of London has pulled me along a little and now I ride. Everyday, I continue to enjoy the beauty and tranquilty that is London – and I am learning to enjoy the bustle and busyness as well.

Buses and trams, trains and planes. Public footpaths and dual carriageways. Commons and heaths, greens and parks. And the quiet and sanctuary of Cari’s home and garden, both growing around me. It has been a wonderful gift to be part of her creation. To watch the house become a home, to watch the garden grow.  To reap and sow. To love and be loved. To be part of her wider family – Tilly, and Emily, Ang and Daz, and little Bennie (god bless em).

And I miss my sons, Toby and Max – it has been a moment apart and I am looking forward to being with you again – I think within the next year or so. And over our time apart I have felt you grow – that has been a joy. Once again thank you for letting me go. Thank you for being there with me when I needed you most.

Thank you to all my friends, to all those in Aotearoa and Australia. Thanks Kate, Garry and Nga, Marney, Jim, Karen, Telisa, Don and Caleb, Lendl in India, Lou, Buck, Ruth, Niuia, Trev and Lyn, Andrea and Andrea, Jackie, Colywn and Chrissi and all the others who have keep me close to them. Thanks for all your loving kindness and concern. Thanks to my UK family – Sian, Penny, Aunty Pat and Fred, Leslie, Vicki and dear Frieda. My friends – Phil and Debs, thanks for making me feel welcome, feel loved.

And finally - thanks mum.

May you ALL be free, may you ALL be happy, may you always share in my dharma.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x